It's a different world. I have poor vision (astigmatism, and nearsighted,) so I've always relied on Al to point out marker buoys, crab pots, other boats. (Possibly yours)
When I made the decision to stop wearing contacts five years ago, I never really thought about getting glasses; too expensive for starters. It was the same reason that took me out of the contacts game. But I can see stuff, just not clearly. It also affects my depth perception. (One of my eyes is significantly worse than the other)
All of this I never really paid much attention to; in my daily life my brain had adjusted to the problem and as far as sailing, in the sense that I was relying on Al for so much of my navigation and spotting for me. Last month we went out sailing after getting new prescription sunglasses. (My driver's license is due and I had no more excuse to wait on getting them.) Now before you get freaky, I must point out that I've done very little driving in the past few years.
But being on the water as a "sighted" sailor was a blast! I could see the buoys from so far away! Probably like you can all the time. I didn't ask Al to look out for crab pots; didn't have to: I could see them! We sailed for two days, and I must have worn Al's ears out over how much I noticed that I'd missed in the past.
Now, when we come into our slip, I'm always at the helm. Part of this is because Al is better at lassoing poles and I'm better at not crashing; having gotten that out of my system during the Hobie years. However, even though we have gotten coming into our slip down to an art form, I'm going to have to relearn a few things.
Now that I can see, the boats at the adjacent dock have gotten a lot bigger, closer, and they seem to stick out further. In forward gear at idle speed, our boat goes twice as fast as we make our approach. I have to make a hard left to place us parallel to our two forward pilings, so that Al can snag the lines off and secure the bow. We then "walk the boat" back into the slip, using lines stretched between the poles, since my boat has a mind of it's own in reverse.
Well, these poles wouldn't stay put! They were drifting forward then zooming away, I just knew I was going to hit one and hard. I figured out it was the depth perception issue, my brain hasn't made the adjustment yet as to how far away an object really is, so my brain keeps "adjusting" the distance as I get closer to it.
So there went my perfect record for the trip. I had to explain to Al that I needed him to call out the distances on the pilings to me so I wouldn't run them over. At least he's used to the request, having done it for me with crab pots I couldn't see, but I sure felt bad about asking, since I'd been doing so well up to that point. I've determined that any sailing trip where I come back feeling dumber than when I went out is a success of sorts.